Great idea, But how dependable?

Bill Whittaker

Interesting idea. Like Bill W, I wonder if the time is right. Is it reliable?

As a side note - I question the subject line of your thread. "Are all drones bad..." I happen to like drones. I like all models. You begin with the assumption that all drones are bad and go on to assert that some might be OK.

If I created the thread "Do all helicopters suck... I think not" on the Flying Giants forum, would you question that?

I don't mean to make more of this than it is. I just happened to notice the subject line and not so much the intent of your post.

Bill V

"Well, Nothing bad can happen now."

The reason I titled it that way is that drones are getting a lot of bad rap on here. Some of the videos that have been taken with these are spectacular. The ones that are getting into trouble with them are the uninformed ones that think that what ever they want to do with them is OK.
I have three of them my self and as far a challenge goes they aren't for me.

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Well, as we all know, this video is fantasy, pure fantasy.

In a good way, but probably not possible due to transmitting video out of a building, etc, etc. What about just finding the person needing the defib (which entrance, which person, etc.)

Most public buildings (in the US) have defibs available and more should. If the call was handled by 911, they would have started chest compressions and breathing as priority.

There are a lot of things wrong with the video and the video could give the public false hope of getting something that is not available. They are trying to sell hope and fixing a currently operating system that may or may not be broken. 2 minutes is a short time to get anything going. Of course it works in the demo to sell units. Where is the public money going to come from for these fleets of aircraft?

I see nothing wrong with using the drones to back up the primary system(s), but do the first things first and get EMTs onsite quickly. Maybe this is something Amazon could do in addition to their deliveries.

A "drone" is like any other tool. It isn't the object, it's what the user does with it.

Like guns. Some idiots ruin it for the responsible ones.

Drones aren't bad. My only complaint is that they lowered the barriers to entry so low that any absolute moron can fly on into the white house, etc. Used to be that to be successful with a helicopter you had to have a modicum of technical as well as common sense. Drones made it so anyone can play, and while we welcome the responsible users, the door was also left open for some major morons.

But the same could be said about cars. Anyone with two synapses can get a license and it's clear from driving that maybe it shouldn't be that way!

But it is what it is. I wouldn't want drones to be illegal, but I could also embrace heavy regulation on them.

"When Inverted down is up and up is expensive"

Yeah but I'm coming around on this issue. An idiot can use a gun to do bad things but I still support the 2nd. And there are people who do stupid things with cars but that shouldn't ruin it for the responsible ones.

We shouldn't do something different with drones. (Yes, I know there's no legal right to have a drone like there is with guns.) But still, this is America.

Just regulate where and how they can be used with some common sense law that allows intervention by law enforcement when something stupid is about to happen, and prosecution when something stupid does happen.

Start with making it illegal to fly above crowds with large drones. Nanos are probably no big deal, so the law could have a weight restriction. But a 10 pound drone 50 feet overhead is a danger.

Then make it illegal to fly within a certain distance of an airport or flight corridor.

This seems like common sense to us. But clearly not everyone thinks so as there are many drone videos capturing just those sort of things.

Drones are here. I doubt they are going away. If anything their presence will increase. We have to learn how to live with them.

Just about anyone can drive and for the most part, driving has laws to make it tolerable. And when someone messes up, they are fined, lose privileges, held liable, or even prosecuted. The same can be done here to make life with drones tolerable.

They are here to stay, and judging by the video, well minded people will come up with brilliant applications to make them not only fun but socially useful.